One of Ours

...Pakistan's former foreign minister Niaz Naik has revealed that he was told by senior American officials in mid-July [2001] that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October [2001]. The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, was then travelling in central Asia, already gathering support for an anti-Afghanistan war "coalition". For Washington, the real problem with the Taliban was not human rights; these were irrelevant. The Taliban regime simply did not have total control of Afghanistan...

...much of the controversy about Clarke’s book — and testimony and interviews — concerns adjectives. Combating terrorism was only “important” to the Bush administration (by the eighth day Clarke was calling the Bush administration “lackadaisical” about terrorism), whereas for the Clinton administration it was “urgent” — “no higher a priority.” Except when it wasn’t. When Clarke recommended “a series of rolling attacks” against al Qaeda’s “infrastructure in Afghanistan,” his recommendation was rejected. But Clarke says “to be fair” we should understand that the Clinton administration decided it had higher priorities — the Balkans, the Middle East peace process.

By the eighth day Clarke was telling Tim Russert that the difference is that Clinton did “something” whereas Bush did “nothing.” Nothing except, among other things, authorizing a quadrupling of spending for covert action against al Qaeda.

Clarke’s apology to the American people, delivered to the Sept. 11 commission, should be considered in the context of the book, the publication of which was timed to coincide with his testimony. When, presuming to speak for the government, he said “we tried hard,” he must have been using the royal plural, because the gravamen of his book is that only he was trying hard. Indeed, parts of Clarke’s memoir call to mind Finley Peter Dunne’s jest that Teddy Roosevelt’s memoir of the Cuban expedition should have been titled “Alone in Cuba.”...

...Perjury being properly difficult to prove, Clarke, if charged, would be acquitted. Besides, it is time to stop trying to criminalize political differences, even those flavored, as in Clarke's case, by anger, malice, opportunism and meretriciousness...

...More attacks are coming because we are still far from draining the social swamps where attackers breed...

...Former senator Slade Gorton, a member of the Sept. 11 commission, asked Clarke whether there was "the remotest chance" that acceptance by the Bush administration of all the recommendations Clarke made four days after President Bush took office would have prevented Sept. 11. Clarke said: "No." So what makes Clarke strident -- his self-description -- is his belief that the Iraq war was a tragic blunder, arising from the president's monomania about Saddam Hussein and draining resources from the war on terror.

Intelligent people can and do make that argument. However...Clarke's version of it was puerile: But for the Iraq war, Sept. 11 might have caused the Islamic masses to say "maybe we've gone too far."...

NATO and the UN are discussing a joint operation to send more peacekeepers to Iraq. While both organizations have loudly condemned the American led coalition that overthrew Saddam Hussein, it's becoming clear that Iraq is headed for peace, prosperity and democracy. While the news media accentuates the violence of Saddam loyalists and Islamic radicals, European and UN officials are aware of the fact that the Iraqi economy is reviving at a robust rate and that most of the country is at peace and awaiting elections. While neither NATO nor the UN will admit, any time soon, that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the establishment of democracy there will do more to defuse Islamic radicalism than anything else being done, they don't want to be frozen out of the process either. Eventually, kudos will be handed out, and they want their share.

...The police and coalition troops are getting more effective at finding and arresting, or killing, gang members. Part of this is due to more communications gear for the Iraqi police and security forces, as well as better coordination with coalition troops. There has not been a “friendly fire” incident between coalition troops and Iraqi police for some time and the Iraqi police are becoming more confident. However, there will be a shortage of Iraqi police for at least another year. This is because the coalition insists on screening and training new police, even those who served in the police before the invasion. Iraqis are beginning to realize that a more professional police force is a more efficient and less corrupt police force. The Iraqi security forces, who are basically just guys with guns and some supervision who guard neighborhoods and commercial operations (including oil facilities and utilities) take some of the load off the police. But you still need effective police to go after all the armed gangs operating in the country.

Meanwhile, coalition officials are waging another, rarely reported, battle against the traditional corruption in Iraqi government. Iraqis are starting to get used to the novelty of corrupt officials being arrested, questioned and prosecuted or dismissed. Since these efforts are taking place on a large scale, no one group is complaining that they are being picked on. No one expects corruption to be eliminated by the time Iraqis take over the senior government positions, but the idea that corruption can be attacked is catching on.

...this attack is designed to test American resolve. Insurgents and terrorists around the world have incorporated the lessons of Mogadishu into their doctrine. Indeed, they have an almost religious belief that they can win if they inflict grievous and gory casualties on American soldiers. Such a strategy is designed to undermine our national will; it assumes that we don't really have the stomach for this fight or its cost, and that we will pull out at the first sign of adversity. Unfortunately, the U.S. did that once. And like it or not, our enemies learned from Mogadishu that they could prevail using similar tactics in the future. But I don't think we will do it here. We have invested far too much in Iraq in terms of spirit, blood and treasure -- we will not cede victory to these bandits and reward them for their atrocities.

At the tactical level, this attack may have destroyed one American convoy. But news of this attack, and the Iraqi mob's behavior, has likely reached every American and coalition soldier now serving in Iraq. Just as the news of the Malmedy massacre during WWII enraged U.S. troops and gave them a reason to fight harder, so too will this event. I don't want to suggest for one minute that American troops will commit an atrocity to respond in kind. This isn't Vietnam, and our junior officers and NCOs are too professional to let that happen. But you can bet that every American fighting man and woman in Iraq feels the rage from this incident, and their leaders will now seek to focus and apply that rage constructively to dismantle and destroy every remaining part of the Iraqi insurgency. Payback will be swift, severe and certain.

The hardest part of any counter-insurgency operation, as Army LTC Gian Gentile and MAJ John Nagl have observed, is properly calibrating force to destroy the insurgency without losing the hearts and minds of the civilian population. The challenge for American commanders in Iraq will be to devise an appropriate response for this incident that effectively targets and kills the Iraqi insurgents without causing too much collateral damage. For what it's worth, there is enough anti-American sentiment in Fallujah that we don't have that much to lose there, and thus a heavy-handed approach will not risk much. However, I am confident that American planners are working on this problem right now.